May vest and hat: Mosaic Swirls

This project and post is from Laurels. You can get the pdf pattern HERE. Read on for more!

Greetings Community Knitters,

I hope everyone is well and taking advantage of extra knitting time!

As you know, we usually begin a vest and hat combo in May for our summer project.  I volunteered to work up a pattern for this year’s project, and therefore offer the following “Mosaic Swirls Vest and Hat”.  Since we will not be able to meet in May, I have asked that the pattern be distributed electronically so that people can get started before they drift off into the haze of summer and forget. In a year when so many people have lost their jobs, there may be more children than ever in need of warm clothing for the coming winter. If anyone can make lemonade out of the stay/safer-at-home orders, it would be knitters!:  needles-a-flying, and warm garb accumulating!

The pattern incorporates some mosaic knitting, which creates color patterns using slip stitches. But the pattern is designed so that people who do not want to do mosaic knitting can just substitute garter stitch for the mosaic sections, or just work the stripe pattern.  I suggest, though, that if you do a stockinette-based pattern, that you work the yoke in a stitch that will not curl – if not mosaic, then garter or seed stitch. 

I hope, however, that many people will try mosaic knitting – it looks more daunting than it actually is and goes quickly once you get the hang of it.  I have added many notes, explanations, etc, which I hope will assist people who have never done it, or who have never knitted from a chart.  I have also suggested a quick practice swatch before beginning the garments themselves. There are a couple of things that are important to remember (or, I should say, easy to forget) – these are bolded in the “Principles” section of the pattern:

- Each row of the chart is knitted twice with the same color;

- Stitches should be slipped with the yarn at the wrong side of the work – this may involve moving the yarn to the back/front before slipping.  If you forget, it is easy to fix on the next row just by moving the float to the correct side.  (Guess how I know this!)

 Also, vest and hat combos generally take more than one (~4 oz) skein of yarn.  If, like me, you forgot this in your scramble to stock up on community knitting yarn before Shuttles closed, and instead took the “variety is the spice of life” route, you may find yourself with not enough of one color.  I suggest using a stripe pattern that would even out the amounts of the two colors (see the green and white “Mosaic Crowd” set, a picture of which is attached).

I finished these two projects before I remembered that I have Roxana’s Slip-Stitch Knitting book, which would be an excellent source for slip-stitch patterns that little kids would like, and they could be converted to garter mosaic – I will be exploring those, and I recommend this as a source for those who want to branch out.

Please contact me if you have questions about the pattern (laurels.sessler@colorado.edu), and I hope to see you all soon at a (maybe summer?) CK meeting!  I will end with one of my favorite quotes from the venerable knitting guru, Elizabeth Zimmermann: 

“Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises.”

Laurels Sessler